


Aftermath - 4 Months Out - Woodworking

by serendipityxxi



Series: The Void [13]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Coping Mechanisms, F/M, M/M, Multi, The Void, woodworking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-01 21:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19185601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityxxi/pseuds/serendipityxxi
Summary: Nathan discovers woodworking is soothing and shares that secret with his partners when they need it.





	1. Nathan

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Jadzibelle for all the handholding and editing <3 <3 <3

As the months go by and Haven settles into a new life, a life where the Troubles are here to stay and maybe that’s not such a bad thing, Nathan’s life settles down too. The quiet itches some- without a crisis every hour on the hour, he has whole evenings where he gets to go home before dark. It’s… odd to say the least. But even though the constant stream of emergencies has slowed, there’s still work left to be done. 

With all the rebuilding projects going on around Haven, pretty much every adult has learned something about construction. Nathan uses his newfound free time to volunteer, helping to put people’s homes back together. He wasn’t allowed to before-- after the Barn and the meteors. Maybe he hasn’t made up for breaking the cycle- he hasn’t ended the Troubles for good- but he no longer feels like he has to die for his sins. He’s made his amends the best he can, and for once he doesn’t feel like his best wasn’t good enough. The Troubles aren’t over, but they’re all working for control and that feels pretty damn good. It feels like the sun on his face and the wind in his hair and the smooth grain of a two by four he’s sanded himself.

Nathan’s rediscovered how much he likes working with his hands. He likes the stretch and impact of swinging a hammer, or the vibration of sawing a piece of wood, the satisfaction when it’s just the right size to finish a wall or a floor. He likes the sore muscles and accomplishment it leaves him with at the end of the evening. There’s no ambiguity on a construction project, either you did the job well or you didn’t, and the house shows it at the end of the day. Nathan really enjoys the straightforward nature of the job. It’s one of the few straightforward things in his life.

He even makes friends, something he’s shied away from since the Troubles started. He and Bill McShaw had always been sort of friends, in that Nathan had been Duke’s friend and Bill had been Duke’s friend and so they’d hung out some when they were younger. They’d had a lot in common back then, being the quieter, more level headed ones in the dynamics of the Duke-and-Nathan and Geoff-and-Bill shows that had been their lives. They hadn’t run in the same social circles as adults but they still got along well. Nathan had been happy to find him at the helm of a good few of the projects he’d volunteered on. 

They’d reconnected over rebuilding floors and walls. Bill was a good teacher and Nathan a quick learner. And when Bill had found out Nathan was interested in learning! Well, he’d been enthusiastic to say the least. Nathan takes to woodworking like a duck to water. He buys his own bandsaw and jigsaw within the first month of the fog wall coming down. 

It hadn’t been a good idea to give the man who couldn’t feel his own hands power tools before, but now… 

He’s not very good at it yet so he’s kept Audrey and Duke out of his workspace, but they’re like cats, always prowling past the garage door trying to get a glimpse of what he’s doing inside there. He’s told them he’s just making a table, not hiding the portal to another dimension (though in Haven he’ll admit it’s equally as likely) but they don’t care. Again, like cats, neither one of them has ever met a keep out sign they didn’t disregard, so it’s really a miracle they haven’t busted in on him. Nathan will admit he kind of likes the mystery and driving them a little crazy.

Mostly though, Nathan likes the smell of the wood, warm and a little sweet when he cuts it, likes the feel of it rough against his fingertips or smooth as satin after it’s been well sanded and stained and varnished. He likes all the steps to get to a finished piece, the layers and layers of work that takes concentration and time. It keeps his hands busy, it keeps his brain busy, helps him feel grounded in his body, like he’s really there. The transition... his Trouble being off… it’s been a challenge. He remembers… he doesn’t really remember much from when he was a kid about what it had been like when the Troubles went away. He remembers the Chief telling him to ‘man up’ or ‘walk it off’ a lot when he complained that something was too hot or too rough or too hard. 

As mad as the idea of saying that to a kid makes Nathan now, he isn’t as mad as he could be. 

No one’s telling him to shake it off now. 

Audrey and surprisingly enough, Duke, have both been so good about the oversensitivity. He’d forgotten what it was like to have Duke Crocker on your side. Duke’s been there to run interference for him, to ground him, to keep him from being overwhelmed without Nathan having to actually say any of that. He’s gotten better in the last few months but in those first few weeks he’d been hyper aware of everything touching him. It had been… a lot.

Audrey and Duke have been working through their own struggles too. Nathan’s found himself in the odd position of being the emotionally stable one. It’s overwhelming being the anchor, being the steady one, helping his partners to deal with nightmares and trauma. It’s a real tightrope to walk, deciding whether to be calm and soothing or gruff and full of tough love. Sometimes he gets it wrong. Sometimes he gets it right. Sometimes he retreats to the garage with his jigsaw and his sander and lets the two of them handle each other. He’s found himself so grateful at times to turn Duke over to Audrey because she can help more, and as much as it grates him to admit it, Duke really does get Audrey in a lot of the ways Nathan doesn’t. It’s good to have backup. Their strange little three-sided relationship works for them, better than Nathan could have hoped for sometimes. 

There are even days when what they need is exactly what Nathan can give.


	2. Duke

Nathan’s already home and getting dinner started one evening in early March when Duke comes in. His shoulders are drooping, head hung low, footsteps slow and precise as he steps out of his boots by the door. 

“Gonna-” Duke gestures at himself, sawdust on his jacket and cement on the hem of his jeans. “Shower.” 

“Making stir fry,” Nathan answers in acknowledgement. Duke gets sarcastic and snide when asked if he’s okay on construction days. Nathan tries not to. 

“Audrey still at the helpline?” Duke asks. 

Nathan gives him a look. Of course she’s still at the helpline. “She promised to be home by eight. Laverne promised to kick her out bodily if she’s still there at eight-thirty,” Nathan says, to get Duke to smile at the thought. Duke gives him a half hearted smile that is clearly more for Nathan’s benefit than anything and treks off to the bathroom. 

It’s been a bad day for Duke then, Nathan deduces. He’d been up and dressed with coffee in hand before Nathan’s alarm had gone off, told them he couldn’t go into the office today. Nathan’s glad he did, glad Duke’s comfortable enough to take the day when he feels he needs to. 

Nathan had been scared the first time Duke had declared he couldn’t cure Troubles that day, but he’d promised to check in and promised he wasn’t running away and Audrey had put her soft hand in Nathan’s and given his fingers a firm squeeze that said  _ we have to give him space if he needs it _ . So Duke had the space he needed and he checked in as promised and came back as promised and he looked… lighter that evening. Whatever site he’d worked on had helped. He’d gone back to dispensing cures in the morning.   


Today though, today, Duke looks as uncomfortable as he was when he left that morning, like his skin’s shrunk a size too small, shoulders bunched at his ears, body tense as piano wire. Nathan watches him go and bites his tongue so he doesn’t ask him what’s wrong, what happened at the site, what does he need? 

Duke’s like a cat. You have to let him come to you. 

Most of the time he doesn’t, though. Most of the time he deflects and makes it all about you, until you’ve forgotten Duke was hurting in the wake of him making your aches easier to bear. He’s an asshole like that, Nathan thinks, fondly but not without frustration. He used to do it with obnoxious jokes that made Nathan grind his teeth because it seemed like he couldn’t take a damn thing seriously. He has made a concerted effort not to do that since they started this whole thing with Audrey though. Nathan supposes he has to consider this progress. 

Of a sort.

Duke comes out of the shower maybe three minutes later. Seventeen minutes sooner than the typical Duke showers that, on a good day, usually includes yodeling, soaking the entire bathroom floor not just the bathmat, and more often than not end in a sandalwood scented cloud of steam escaping down the hall when he opens the bathroom door. None of that happens tonight. 

Duke slinks back into the room and proceeds to make a nuisance of himself. He’s always underfoot where Nathan wants to be, adding or adjusting ingredients, stealing vegetables out of the pot. He does it all with maybe three fifths of the charm and flair Nathan’s used to which tells Nathan both that Duke is aware of what he’s doing and that he’s willing to let Nathan be aware of it as well. He’s reaching out in his weird little Duke way. 

Nathan’s chest feels like it swells to bursting at how little Duke's trying to hide his restlessness when Duke literally eats his dinner leaning against the counter instead of following Nathan to the table. He couldn’t be broadcasting ‘not okay’ any clearer than if he actually came out and said the words. Nathan would make fun of him in the privacy of his own thoughts, but he also knows exactly how hard it is to say those words so he just can’t.

Their squabbling through the dishes is done by rote. Duke’s mind is clearly only half on the conversation and Nathan’s mind is on what to do to help Duke. They still manage to pull off their lines convincingly- either that or neither is paying enough attention to call the other on it.

Nathan takes the wooden cutting board to dry it and gets a spark of inspiration.

When the dishes are done Nathan walks over to the door and takes down his coat. “C’mon, got something to show you,” he tells Duke, meeting his curious gaze.

Duke glances down. “Not really dressed for going anywhere, Nathan,” he protests, pointing at his bare feet.

“Only going out to the garage,” Nathan tells him, and waits.

Duke doesn’t disappoint, eyes lighting up with the first spark of real interest he’s shown all evening.

“The garage?” he repeats.

Nathan allows himself a smirk. “The garage,” he confirms.

Duke is across the room and stepping into his boots in a moment. He meets Nathan’s smirk with a grin of his own. Nathan reaches out and rocks his shoulder affectionately.

“C’mon,” he grunts, handing Duke his coat. 

They dash across the yard in the cold dark. March is here but winter hasn’t shown any signs of giving up the ghost just yet. There are patches of snow still on the ground from their most recent snowstorm. Nathan hates every second of the cold against his nose and the tips of his ears but he wouldn’t trade the sensation for the world. 

That doesn’t stop him from turning on the space heater the instant they get inside the garage. He and Duke stand beside it for long moments while it kicks in, Duke’s eyes curiously roaming the walls and floors.

Nathan’s hobby has mostly taken over the whole space.

There are tools and chisels, clamps and bits in tin cans stacked neatly on a bench against the back wall, a dozen shades of varnish and stain lined up beneath it, a band saw set up on the left, hacksaws and a jigsaw hung on the wall, and best of all, all the half finished pieces he’s started piled on several surfaces, waiting for Nathan to return and assemble them. It’s organized chaos and Nathan kind of likes it this way. 

Duke whistles low and impressed as he smooths a hand over the closest piece. It’s going to be a two shelf bedside table so Duke has somewhere to put his stuff instead of on top of Nathan’s watch every night. Nathan isn’t ready to tell him that though. 

Instead he leads him deeper into the workroom to a piece he’s started recently.

“Gonna be a step ladder for Parker,” Nathan explains.

“So she stops climbing your counters,” Duke laughs, and Nathan grins.

“Exactly,” Nathan agrees. “Needs to be sanded though. Was hoping you’d help me out?”

Duke gives him a look that says he knows exactly what Nathan’s doing. 

“Nate, I’m fi--” he begins to protest, but Nathan presses a sanding block into his hand and slides into the space behind Duke, fitting his body against Duke’s back. Duke holds very still as Nathan hooks his chin over Duke’s shoulder, his stubble rasps over the synthetic fiber of Duke’s winter coat, it’s cool and smooth where Duke’s cheek is so very warm and just a little rough with his own five o’clock shadow against the side of Nathan’s face.

“Be nice to get it done before it’s her turn to cook again,” Nathan murmurs, moving the sanding block against the pre-cut piece of pine, slow and careful, always in the same direction. 

“Or you could stop stashing the ingredients she needs on the top shelf,” Duke points out wryly, but his fingers are moving with Nathan’s now, not just allowing Nathan to direct them. He’s moving the block too and Nathan adjusts the pressure he’s putting on it to accommodate both of their grips. A little thrill shoots through his belly; he can do that now, he can  _ feel  _ that now.

“S’where they go,” Nathan scoffs, not letting the thrill show in his voice. He’s concentrating on Duke now.

They sand in silence for a while. The soft  _ shhk, shhk, shhk  _ sound of the block over the wood is satisfying, but not nearly as satisfying as the way Duke’s shoulders relax inch by inch against the warm brace of his own. Their fingers fit together over the wooden block like puzzle pieces; Duke’s are tan even in the middle of winter, long and nimble and steady. 

Nathan wants that for him, wants him to be as steady as his hands. 

Living in Haven isn’t easy. This new Haven they’re crafting out of the rubble still has a lot of the old prejudices and faults. Nathan knows Duke is worried - worried the cure will fail, worried even after all these weeks that Nathan and Audrey won’t want him any more, worried about his place in this new Haven they’re building, worried he’ll have to use his Trouble again. Nathan worries about all those things too, worries they won’t be able to make this thing they’re building together- the three of them- he worries they won’t be able to make it work. Nathan worries about the town and keeping the Troubles secret and policing people who suddenly have abilities they  _ can _ control. 

Nathan doesn’t worry about any of those things out here though. Out here there’s only the wood and the plans and the things he can craft with his own two hands. The rhythm of sanding gets into his muscles, grounds him in his body, makes him feel real in a way few other things do. He can’t think ten steps down the line when he’s working on a new piece, he’s got to be in this moment here. Nathan’s wondered if this is what Duke gets from his yoga and meditation. He hopes it is, hopes he’s helping.

“I do know how to sand, you know,” Duke glances over his shoulder at Nathan to say. 

Nathan shrugs and he knows Duke can feel it if not see it. “No one’s saying you don’t,” he huffs.

Their hands keep moving together, shhk, shhk, shhk. 

Duke lapses into silence again and lets the sanding work it's magic. They stand together like that for a long time in the warm light of the lamps, bodies twined together, breathing in tandem, focused on this joint purpose. Nathan feels it bit by bit as Duke manages to shut off whatever’s shouting at him in his head, feels the tension ebbing from his shoulders, practically feels his mind quieting. 

By the time they’re finished Duke’s eyes are clear and Parker isn’t going to find one single splinter on her new step ladder when Nathan finishes putting it together. 

Audrey’s car door slamming breaks the spell of the evening and Nathan lets Duke pull away with only a little regret.

Duke turns to him then, putting his hands on Nathan’s hips, holding him in place. He searches Nathan’s face, for what Nathan doesn’t know but he hopes Duke finds it, hopes Duke can see the love and concern that are burning a hole through his chest right then. 

Duke kisses him, soft and quick. “Thanks,” he breathes against Nathan’s lips. 

Nathan smiles. He doesn’t brush it off. He doesn’t pretend he doesn’t know what Duke’s talking about.

He pins Duke’s chin between his thumb and forefinger so he has to look at him and says “Anytime.”

He means it. Any time Duke needs him. He hope Duke knows that. He’s going to keep showing him until he does. 

As they walk across the darkened yard Nathan thinks maybe he’ll call Dwight in the morning. Ask him to check out the Gull, see if it’s salvageable. Duke needs something of his own to build. 


	3. Audrey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Readers (I really like typing that) I just really want to say /thank you/ for sticking with this story and thank you even more for telling me you've stuck with it and how it's affected you because wow is that an awesome incentive to keep sharing it! You guys are a treasure!

Audrey Parker is great at curing Troubles. She’s really bad at remembering names and hates doing laundry and dishes. In short, she’s human. A lot more human than she appreciates most days. In the three months since the fog wall’s gone down she’s had her share of nightmares. They all have. Audrey’s didn’t start til almost two months after. Nathan suspects it took her that long to feel safe, to feel like they were really out of the woods.

Nathan’s done a lot of reading about nightmares. He’s even tried to learn how to lucid dream to no avail. The consensus seems to be that your brain needs to work through things, especially the things you don’t deal with during your waking hours. They don’t talk about what happened in the Void. They don’t talk about Croatoan. They don’t talk about any of it except in round-about references. They talk about rebuilding the town. They talk about curing Troubles and who heard the weirdest story for how a Trouble was triggered. They talk about shifts at the helpline and training new HPD officers to work with the Troubled. They talk about being glad ‘it’s over’. Which ‘it’ Nathan doesn’t know - the fog wall, Croatoan, the Troubles being a secret - so many ‘its’. 

Nathan does know that Audrey was coping until the town-wide memorial last week Sunday. It’s been six days and she’s woken up every night since.

The first night, he’d startled awake to her screams of “I’m not! I’m not her!” like a cold fist in his gut.

She’d bolted out of bed when they succeeded in waking her. Paced the floor of the bedroom in her pajama pants, insisting she was fine. She’d been dreaming. It was just a dream.

Nathan and Duke had exchanged concerned looks that only seemed to rile her further.

It had been almost eight though, so they’d let her go start coffee. Nathan’s heart twisted in his chest when he found her in her HPD jacket over her pajamas in the kitchen, bundled into it like armor.

The second night had been whimpers in her sleep that had woken Duke but Nathan had slept through them. The third she came to bed at two a.m. and slept til the alarm went off a scant few hours later.

She went to work anyway. Every day that week. She worked and she worked and she volunteered at the helpline when she was done working and Nathan thought it might be helping. Audrey believed so much of her worth lay in helping the Troubled that Nathan thought it might make the nightmares go away if she helped as many people as she could, if she did as many things that made her feel like herself as she could. He stayed close to her nevertheless, made sure to call her Parker as often as possible, and he really thought she might be getting a relief from the nightmares.

Wednesday, the fourth night, had been the worst. On top of three days of sleep deprivation she and Duke had gotten drunk and she’d matched him shot for shot in the hopes she wouldn’t dream.

She had.

He’d never seen Audrey Parker so shaky, so panicked. She couldn’t seem to really wake up properly at first no matter how they called and shook. Her glassy eyes had scared him as much as the way her fingers had dug into his arms, like she couldn’t feel them, like she couldn’t feel that he was there. She’d begged him to believe she was Audrey, no one else, just Audrey, her tears dripping hot onto his skin.

Duke had raced back in from the kitchen with a frozen bag of peas, pressing it to the bare skin of her back above her tank top. She shrieked, loud and piercing and startled but the haze cleared from her eyes.

Then the tears had come in earnest. Nathan and Duke had wrapped themselves around her, Audrey pulling their arms tighter and tighter, like she wanted to hide between them. They’d all finally fallen into an exhausted, empty sleep after that, hopelessly tangled together amidst all the sheets and blankets, the bag of peas slowly defrosting into a wet spot at the foot of the bed.

Last night she hadn’t come to bed til three and she’d been up with the alarm as usual. Nathan had dragged through the day tired and spaced out from waking up to check on her through the night.

She’d faked her way through the sessions with the council appointed shrink right after the fog wall had come down. He’d come back to the topic this morning and she’d shut him down again. “Not after Claire,” she’d told him point blank. Nathan hadn’t been able to argue with her then, not with her chin tilted stubbornly high and her eyes overbright from tiredness.

Audrey stumbles through the day just as slow and sluggish as Nathan. At two o’clock he knocks on the door to her office. The three new detectives they’d hired to help with the Troubled specifically had just received the tongue lashing of their lives and Nathan has had enough.

They pass him on the way out the door- to follow a lead or just to escape the dragon lady, Nathan isn’t sure. Nathan knocks on her door frame and walks right on in. She’s got files spread out across her desk and a scowl on her face until she sees it’s him and then she holds up her hand. “I’m fine, Nathan,” she brushes him off.

“Don’t think those three are,” Nathan gestures over his shoulder.

Audrey folds her arms across her chest and Nathan fights a grin at the defensive gesture.

“Come on Parker, we’re going home,” he says instead of fighting.

“Nathan-” she huffs while he collects her coat from the rack beside the door. “It’s two o’clock, I’ve got things to d-”

He cuts her off with a look, soft and beseeching, crouches beside her desk so he can meet her eyes. “Parker,” he says gently, “let’s go. You’re no use to me like this.”

“Nathan,” she says quietly, “I have to stay. I have to work. If I’m not here then what good am I?” she asks him, and there’s desperation in her voice, “if I’m not here then who am I?” she asks like she can’t keep the words back.

Nathan’s heart twists at the pain in her voice.

He grips her hands so she looks at him and tells her without a shadow of doubt “You are more than just your job, Parker. You’re more than just what you can do. You need more than just the work. You need to sleep and to eat and to rest and to tease Duke and to make dishes and then not wash them-” Audrey gives a wet laugh at his words and Nathan smiles up at her. His thumb swipes out to catch the tear hanging from her lashes.

“Let’s go home, _Audrey_ ,” he offers.

Parker opens her mouth like she wants to argue and then closes it again. She lets him help her into the jacket.

“You should stay,” she waffles at the door to his office where he leans in to grab his coat and close the screen on his laptop.

“Who’s going to tell the boss on me?” he asks with a mischievous grin.

Audrey smiles back- against her will, it looks like.

She’s quiet for the drive home but Nathan’s okay with that. He doesn’t need to fill every minute with noise like certain other people who will remain Duke.

Parker heads for the house when they get out of the truck but Nathan doesn’t. He heads for the garage.

He looks behind him to find her paused on the path looking at him, a hint of confusion in those blue eyes he loves so much.

“C’mon, Parker,” he says holding out a hand. His heart thumps painfully in his chest when she reaches out without hesitating. She lets him draw her into his side, his arm around the slim line of her shoulders, her soft hair brushing the underside of his chin. She sags against him as they walk, as if she doesn’t have the energy to keep pretending she’s okay any more.

They go into the garage and just like Duke she pauses at the door, looking around, eyes wide in amazement. Not much has changed in the month since he had Duke in here. The tools are still spread out, a few pieces have been finished and moved out. Her step stool is in their kitchen as they speak. He’s started a couple more projects in the meantime, but hasn’t had much time to work on them, not with getting the Gull underway.

Nathan leaves her in the doorway and goes to collect a tool from the back. He plugs it in and comes back for her.

“This is a dremel,” he tells her, handing her a machine that’s maybe the size of an electric clipper. “It’s for-”

“Carving things into wood,” she interrupts him, smiling at his surprise. “For four low payments of $19.99 you too can have your own. They advertise it a lot on the late night infomercials,” she explains.

Nathan grins. He reaches out and grabs a piece of spare one by four from his pile of cast offs.

“You just push the button on the front there-”

Audrey flicks the button and the dremel whirs to life in her hand. She jumps a little at the power and then smiles at him.

“What are we doing here, Nathan?” she asks, and Nathan is surprised she’s held out as long as she has.

Nathan turns off the dremel, walks her back to the door. “Moved here when I was five, maybe six,” he tells her. He doesn’t miss her sharply drawn intake of breath, surprise and pleasure mixing on her face. Nathan feels a stab of guilt. He really never shares his past with her. It’s something he should change. Starting now. “Bout a month after that the Chief said we were stayin’ here for good, said we should make our mark,” Nathan points to a spot beside the doorway. There on the wall are the initials NW carved haphazardly in the wood right below a cleaner GW.

“Said we had to make our mark out here or my mom woulda had a fit,” Nathan smiles, feels the smile stretch his cheeks, there’s no bitterness left in the memory, only love.

Audrey’s eyes are wide and a little damp when they meet his again.

“Thought maybe you’d want to make your mark too, now that you’re staying.”

Audrey makes a noise that comes alarmingly close to a sob, biting fiercely down on her lower lip. She nods. “I probably shouldn’t," she tells him in a voice that wobbles and makes his eyebrows shoot for the roof, his stomach dropping into his boots. “I don’t know how to tell you this but I’m leaving you both and eloping to Vegas with Stan in the morning,” she jokes, mischief swimming behind the tears now.

Nathan laughs, a real laugh. It startles her, makes her laugh too and it feels good to stand in the dusty quiet of his workroom and laugh with Audrey Parker about the fact that she’s not going anywhere. She’s going to stay. She’s going to get to make plans and carry them out. Nothing is going to take her away, no Barn, no aether, no crazy homicidal father.

Nathan kisses her soft and sweet, like they have all the time in the world, because they do. They finally do. He pulls her into his arms and holds her, just holds her, her head fitting snugly right below his chin. His heart feels like it might burst with the love for her that’s flooding his chest.

“You get to stay, Parker,” he breathes the words against her ear. “You get to build a life here, any life you want. And no one can take it from you. You won,” he murmurs, holding her close, beloved and safe, this infuriating, impossible, irreplaceable woman who has chosen him to stand at her side. It’s humbling and amazing and he kisses her forehead, strokes his hand over her hair, pours all the tenderness welling up in him into his touch.

Audrey sniffles, hard, nods against his shoulder. “ _We_ won,” she answers, and Nathan’s heart feels like her words have given it a squeeze.

“ _We_ won,” he agrees, kissing the top of her head. He won, most of all. No better prize than Audrey and Duke. They’re both his. He knows he’s a lucky bastard. He’s never going to forget just how lucky.

When they pull apart they go back to the table with the dremel. They make practice cuts in a spare piece of wood. He cups his hand around her clever fingers, helping her get a feel for the tool, helping her learn to make curves and loops and peaks.

She carves AP under the NW by the door, a little rough and shaky but legible. When she looks up at him there’s a new light in her eyes, bright and calm and steady. She smiles and Nathan can’t help his answering grin.

_She’s here to stay._

“What else can we carve?” she demands and Nathan barks out a laugh. Parker brings the dremel up between them and gives it a whirr that makes Nathan laugh more. He grabs her hand and the dremel before she can do either of them any damage with it, and her fingers are warm and alive under his, vibrating with energy and enthusiasm.

He can’t say no to her.

She turns down the scrap wood he offers but looks like she’s contemplating the bench Nathan’s in the process of building. In an effort to save his project, Nathan has a brainstorm.

They take the tool into the little patch of woods down the street from the house.

Audrey flits from tree to tree, all old, old oaks and aspens, ash and maples, normal trees, not an aether pine in sight. They’ve got fresh, healthy, green leaves budding; spring is well underway. Nathan inhales deeply, the scent of green growing things filling his nose over the tang of the sea.  Audrey squints in the dappled light, hair burnished in white gold as she looks this way and that, trying to find just the right tree. The sunlight looks good on her. Nathan can’t remember the last time they were outdoors just because, not following up a lead or running an errand.

Nathan unzips his jacket as he heats up from the walk, grins as he does it, relishing in the bend and flex of his ankles as he walks over the uneven ground.

When he looks up, she’s apparently found ‘the tree’, and the dremel’s already out of her coat pocket.

“This is technically vandalism,” Nathan warns as she flicks the drill on, a little spark of guilt lodging in his stomach.

Audrey looks over her shoulder and rolls her eyes at him. “Weren’t you the one responsible for half the graffiti downtown last winter?” she teases.

Nathan huffs a laugh. She thinks she’s so cute. The problem is, she is.

She gets to work carving _AP_ into the bark of a tall, broad old oak. She doesn’t go too far into the tree and her letters are a lot smoother this time around. She doesn’t stop there though, she adds a plus sign underneath it and then _NW_ and another plus sign and _DC_.

"Aren't I supposed to be the one doing the carving on that one, Parker?" he teases.

"When have we ever believed in gender roles?" she volleys right back, making him grin.

“Well, go on,” he prompts, “might as well draw the heart around it.” He’s shooting for sarcastic but he knows she hears the sincerity underneath.

“Such a romantic, Wuornos,” she smirks but does in fact draw a lopsided heart around all three of their initials. Her sarcasm isn’t that deep either lately.

When Duke gets home that afternoon, the light is all but faded from the sky, mountains of purple and grey clouds limned in gold, silver and white filling the horizon. It doesn’t stop Audrey from dragging him out into the blue shadows beneath the trees.

“Made you something,” is all she’ll tell Duke.

“It isn’t a bear trap or a pit lined with spikes is it?” Duke asks, picking his way carefully in the deepening gloom.

Audrey laughs.

Nathan claps his shoulder in sympathy. Duke raises his eyebrows at Nathan in mute appeal. Nathan shrugs in response and gets a scowl in return.

“For future reference I like it when people make me whiskey sours and fruity drinks with umbrellas in them, just so we’re clear,” Duke continues his complaints. “Maybe a nice steak dinner,” he waggles his eyebrows at Nathan. 

Nathan smiles slow and pleased. Steak’s one of the things he’s good at and he’s made steak for Duke before, in fact. Duke smiles back at Nathan, _he remembers,_ the smile tells him. It’s sincere and appreciative and before Nathan can do anything about it Audrey turns around and grabs Duke’s hand, dragging him impatiently through the underbrush.

“Okay, okay!”

She drags him to their tree and then sticks her hands in her pockets, rocks back on her heels but Nathan can see the nerves in her posture now that he’s actually here, now that she’s actually shown him. She hadn’t considered what his reaction might be, too caught up in the excitement of the moment. Nathan bites his tongue and watches Duke squinting through the gloom, waits for Duke to spot it, to say something, anything, he really hopes he doesn’t make a dumb remark and ruin Parker’s--

Duke blinks, hard, looks from Audrey to Nathan and then back with a quiet little nod.

The tension in Nathan’s stomach disappears. He shouldn’t have worried.

“So,” Duke drawls, and his arm snakes out to drag Audrey up against him, “does this mean we’re going steady?” he jokes.

Audrey wraps her arms around his waist in turn. “No, the sex we had in the shower this morning and the fact that you wash your clothes with mine means we’re going steady,” she tells him, bold and brash - the Audrey Parker way, but her shoulders are all but sagging in relief and Duke smiles down at her, all the angles of his face softened by that smile and the twilight around them.

“Good to know,” he agrees, “wouldn’t want to be unclear about something like that.” Nathan can’t quite tell in the gathering dusk but that definitely was not Duke’s smoothest line. Nathan can see his adam’s apple bob as he swallows suspiciously hard and Nathan drops his hand on Duke’s shoulder, squeezes to let him know he’s there, he gets it. Duke loops his arm around Nathan in turn, tugging him in against their warmth.

They stand in front of the tree until the light is mostly gone and they have to rely on the flashlight on Nathan’s keychain to lead them out of the woods.

When the house is in view again Nathan takes a breath and squares his shoulders and asks, “D’you know how to use a dremel?”

Audrey looks up at him, her eyes bright, her smile brighter and Nathan feels his heart beat flutter right up into his throat because she approves, he’s done well. He smiles at her and then looks to Duke who meets his grin with a curious smile of his own.

 _So damn lucky,_ Nathan thinks. _So damn lucky._

\-----

Nathan finds AP carved in a dozen places after that day; on one of the floorboards of the porch, under her desk at the station when he goes to retrieve a pen that rolled under there, he even finds AP carved into one of the ceiling beams of the Gull as they work on rebuilding. He never misses his dremel when he wants it, so he has no idea when she’s finding the time to do all this carving.

He asks her, quietly, tentatively the Thursday after Mother’s Day if maybe she wants to go carve James’ name into _that_ pier. Her chin wobbles for a moment and she bows her head, taking deep breaths before answering. “No,” she murmurs.

Nathan nods, prepared to leave it at that.

“Maybe-”

His head shoots up at her voice.

“Maybe we can find someone to put up a headstone at--” her voice cracks. “I know he’s not there but--” she can’t go on.

Nathan finds he can’t answer either, his throat feels swollen shut, his heart like it’s pumping something much thicker than blood.

“Yeah,” he rasps finally. “I’d like that.” They smile at each other, wobbly and frail but they smile.

Duke goes with them to the cemetery the day the stone goes up. Nathan knows he’s thinking about Jean, doesn’t know how to broach the topic with Duke, doesn’t even know if he should. They stand shoulder to shoulder in the weak sunlight while the priest Duke hired murmurs a blessing over the headstone.

Audrey makes them stop on the way home, detours out to the pier anyway, pulls the dremel from the glove compartment of her car.

They stand on the shore, silent sentries while she carves “Lucy Ripley was here 1983” into the weather worn board.

“She deserves to be remembered too,” is all she’ll say when she joins them.

When they get home Duke tells them in quiet, halting tones what he remembers of Lucy Ripley. Starting with she took her coffee with milk, one sugar.

_Lucy deserves to be remembered too._

Duke comes out to the garage to drag him back inside at two a.m. that night when he wakes to find Nathan not in their bed. Instead they sit and sand Nathan’s newest pieces and Nathan tells Duke about 1983, about Agent Butterworth and the Chief and holding onto Lucy while Croatoan killed James, convincing her it had to be done. His voice is hoarse and neither of their eyes are dry by the time he’s done but Nathan feels… not better, he’ll never feel better about that, but he feels lighter somehow, like the burden isn’t so hard to bear.

Nathan traces his thumb over the initials beside the door on their way out, the dips and ridges of the people who’ve lived in this house, who belong to him, even if it’s just in his memory.

He’s a damn lucky man.


End file.
